More on the Forest Service Trails Project

There was a great article in the Smoky Mountain News Wednesday about the Forest Service non-motorized trails planning project. A couple of the public input workshops have already been held; I plan on attending the one in Mars Hill this Thursday evening (Jan. 19, in the Peterson Conference Room, Mars Hill College). Regardless of the outcome of the project, it appears some changes to the National Forest trail system may be upcoming – however, it also looks like the end result could be largely influenced by public input, which is great.

Whatever happens on the ground, our input to the Forest Service will be to encourage rapid and accurate dissemination of information (such as changed trail designations, trail closures, or upcoming trail work) so we can in turn keep you informed. They’re doing a much better job of this in recent years (especially on their new web site), so I think it’ll be much easier to stay informed through this round of changes.